Lecture on Jewish architects to mark end of Weinwurm exhibition

The Slovak National Gallery exhibition of the renowned Slovak architect who designed several outstanding projects in Bratislava and elsewhere will be enhanced with a lecture in English by Vienna-based Elana Shapira.

Shapira_Lectur: detail from the facade of architect Arthur Baron_Fleisch(Source: Courtesy of SNG)

The Friedrich Weinwurm: New Path exhibition of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG) has been accompanied by several lectures, guided tours, workshops and other events.

Shortly before the exhibition winds up on May 20, a lecture, in English, titled Jewish Clients and Architects, Viennese Modernism and the Sociology of Aesthetics will be delivered by Dr. Elana Shapira – an art and design historian from Design History and Theory at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna – on May 17, at 18:00, in the SNG’s Esterházy Palace in Bratislava (2nd floor). Admission is €2.

Beginning in the 20th century, Jewish patrons, journalists and designers pioneered new aesthetic paths supporting and contributing to two modernist movements, Art Nouveau and the school of the non-Jewish architect Josef Hoffmann, and its opposition, the school of the non-Jewish architect Adolf Loos. In the period between two world wars, some noteworthy Jewish architects like Oskar Strnad and Josef Frank continued their own design language, bearing their clients’ social needs in minds.